Matilda was at least the daughter of the king and had powerful supporters. I’m familiar with the Anarchy.
On the show it’s established that the Lannisters have been maintaining power with the support of the Tyrells. Cersei rather dramatically severed that alliance, and also killed her own uncle, the head of House Lannister; the main part of their forces were out in the Riverlands anyway and wouldn’t have been on hand to support her claim even if they acknowledged her as the new house head, which is doubtful. It makes for good TV that she puts on her evil shoulderpads and gets crowned queen by a necromancer, but in the real world equivalent she just blew up St. Peter’s Basilica and killed the Pope and most of the Curia, as well as thousands of bystanders, some of her blood relatives and (as far as people will believe) her son, the king. I suspect that the more likely outcome of pulling a stunt like that would be quick death at the hands of an enraged mob, possibly including former bannermen.
I agree with the other interpretation. They’ve given no indication Sansa distrusts Jon and every indication she understands to distrust Littlefinger. She even explicitly said anyone would be a fool to trust him.
From Sansa’s reaction to them swearing allegiance to House Stark and Jon in particular, I was assuming she had worked in the background to prompt the acceptance of Jon over herself since she had previously tried to convince Jon of the same thing. I assumed when he turned her down she talked to supporters to make it happen anyway.
Well, allying with Sansa as Lady of Winterfell was the path he had in mind, and she rejected that pretty hard, both with her words, and her actions. So now he needs a new plan, and it’s hard to see how that could involve leaving Winterfell in the hand of Jon.
From a writer’s perspective, Cersei right now is in a shit position. Dany is allied with Dorne, Tyrell, and half the Iron Islands. Jon has consolidated the north. Cersei has no allies at all, except the Freys, who were useless even before getting their house decapitated. How do you write an interesting conflict when Dany arrives? Cersei needs allies fast, and the only real candidates with and might behind them are Littlefinger and Euron. So I’m guessing one or both are going to turn to her soon, in order to provide at least some resistance to Dany. Not sure how you write that and have it make any sense, but the need is there, narratively.
Yes, to me they’ve overdone the Dany story, making her collect such a big powerful army that it could have invaded when Westeros was at it’s most powerful militarily and still had a chance. Now, with Westeros ravaged by war among all the major houses it seems like there shouldn’t be nearly enough of an army left to fight back against Dany, Dorne, the Iron Islands, and Tyrells. That’s without even mentioning that the North is also against Kings Landing.
This means either we will have to suspend disbelief when Westeros actually still does have a huge army left, or Dany will easily take Kings Landing then the real conflict will be between her and the North. I suppose she could also take Kings Landing then ally with the North immediately to battle the walkers, but that seems much less likely since they’ll need a serious wrinkle to cause tension prior to them allying against the walkers.
This show has a history of building up big conflicts and then short-circuiting them. See; The Red Wedding. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Lannisters are just a footnote in the events to come.
We’ve only got 13-15 episodes left - that’s not a lot of time, considering that we need to see a resolution to the Iron Islands plot, the invasion of Westeros by Daeneris, some kind of alliance between her and the North, the resolution of the plots surrounding Arya, the Hound, Littlefinger, Brienne, and of course the battle with the White Walkers, which should be the main event since the entire story has been building to that.
So I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Lannisters bow out very early in the next season - perhaps a sack of King’s Landing, followed by Cersei dying by Jaime’s hand and Jaime either submitting to Tyrion or killing himself. End of the Lannister story. Tyrion goes on to rule King’s Landing as hand of the Queen while Daeneris goes north to broker a peace with Jon. There she discovers the threat of the White Walkers, and we get a callback to Stannis realizing that the only way to rule is to earn it. She then takes her hordes and armies and launches them against the White Walkers and we get the big battle we’ve been waiting for - which should take several episodes.
Quite likely. If the show-runners decide to strenghten the connection to Norse mythology, Jamie, however, might not go out with a whimper. He is still the closest resemblance to Tyr, humanity’s first champion.
I don’t have a problem with Ramsay taking over… after all, he had been legitimized by his father, went to lengths of concocting a cover up story (my father has been poisoned by our enemies!) and quickly (and quietly) removed his biggest counterclaimant (his infant half-brother).
I can also see Cersei’s takeover as realistic enough… she took out all the other leadership in the city, and she basically owns the Lannister force. It’s the sort of takeover that, were the rest of the realm not already weakened and fragmented by civil war, would’ve resulted in everyone else rebelling and/or calling a Great Council or something, but in the short term I can easily see her taking control of the city and crowning herself Queen. There’s still quite the possibility she’s quickly overthrown and not seen as an ‘official’ monarch down the road, though.
Definitely agree for the others, though… Euron openly admitting to killing his brother was silly (and basically forces the interpretation of “the Iron Islanders are bloodthirsty morons”) and it’s hard to see how Ellaria would hold Dorne with three Sand Snakes. And in reality, I think Sansa would’ve become the ruler of Winterfell instead of Jon (who’d instead be the top general or whatever), especially in the absence of Robb’s letter legitimizing Jon as his heir. There’s a reason the books have a lot of regents and puppet rulers.
There was a good fan theory that she didn’t tell him because she was either 1) angling to gain more power for herself or 2) knew the only way to get Ramsay to take the field was to hide their strength, otherwise he’d just hole up in Winterfell.
Instead, the show made it quite clear she just didn’t tell him for… other reasons. Stupidity? Either way, it doesn’t seem like either of the above reasons works. The show has lost a lot of subtlety and I think it’s pretty safe to assume the first impression at this point instead of looking for hidden meanings.
Or she didn’t tell him because everyone would have thought it was a retarded idea and she was a dumbass for even considering it. Her plan is only retroactively acceptable, not telling one was the smart thing to do and it had absolutely nothing to do with trust.
Their dialogue on the wall of Winterfell indicates that Jon thinks it was a trust issue and Sansa doesn’t object. And though I repeat myself: not telling Jon deprived him of the chance to plan differently, and we don’t know, how much of his suicidal charge was utter despair.
Really? Going to a near-certain death against superior forces is better than accepting the aid of the Knights of the Vale and then dealing with the consequences after?
No, I think a better explanation is that Sansa didn’t tell Jon because she had no intentions of allowing Littlefinger to help because she knew it would come at a great price, and because she was inexperienced enough to not understand that the assault just couldn’t be put off while they scrounged up more men. Once she finally realised that the battle was going to happen anyway, she turned to Littlefinger for help as an absolute last resort.
Sansa didn’t trust Jon in one sense - she thought that if he knew about Littlefinger’s army, he’d want to use it. And Sansa thought that was a bad idea, right up until the last moment when she was faced with no other choice and realised how dire the situation was.
It was Littlefinger who decided to hold back his forces until the Boltons were completely committed and opened up their rear to attack. Or, if we accept lesser writing, he just got there in the nick of time.
Not the knights of the vale, Littlefinger. If she had told them at that battle planning meeting that he was coming they would have immediately started planning how to fight against him.
Yes. Lord Kevan realizes too late that Pycelle is already there in the room, and was killed before the Hand arrived.
No, I think Cersei has plausible deniability. No one but she and Maester Mengele seem to know about the dragonfire under the Great Sept, and she lost her beloved son that same day, as everyone will note. She can give a sorrowful speech, talk about rebuilding and pulling together for the good of the kingdom etc., and take advantage of the leadership vacuum - in the short term, at least.
Agreed. We can usually take everything that happens at face value. It’s kind of the GOT version of Occam’s Razor.
I definitely agree with this. Remember the play in Braavos? The narrative that the people in the show’s world accept is very different from the narrative that the show’s viewers know/accept.
This would be a perfect ending for Littlefinger: He marries Dany, and they become reigning King and Queen, officially co-rulers. But instead of him being the real ruler and her just a figurehead, as he assumes, the opposite happens, and the series ends with him sitting on the Iron Throne, but with no actual power or influence, while Dany gets busy with Dario.
I don’t think we can necessarily take her at face value there. If theory #2 was true, she wouldn’t just tell Jon “I didn’t tell you about my plan because I needed you to charge and risk dying. Good job not dying, BTW, but that was just a bonus, not the actual plan.” Instead, she’d say something placating, like “I’m really sorry, I should have told you, we can totally trust each other now.” Which is what happened. Which, you’ll note, is also the way Littlefinger would have played it. She’s learned from the best.
And maybe I’m wrong, and the show’s protagonists are just all idiots blundering about and getting lucky, but nothing in the show contradicts my version of events, and I like it a lot better. So I’m going to go on believing it until I have a good reason not.
I like your version a lot better also. I just can’t imagine why, if that’s what the showrunners actually had in mind, they were steadfastly refuse to actually demonstrate that.
It would go to the eldest surviving Baratheon; Stannis would be next were he alive, but then the series makes the point that a name is nothing without the wherewithal to make your claim. And the crown declared his claim forfeit as he is rebellious and perhaps adopted a foreign religion.